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In this episode, the hunters
intervene in the case of a Digimon gaining power through a popular
collectible card game... but only after it completely drains the
energy of its victim. Twice.

Hunters is all over the place when it
comes to the subject material of its filler. As a result, it's easy
and fun to throw in visuals or lines from something like a cooking
competition or a ghost investigation. One thing the show never quite
stoops to, however, is parody. No matter how inane or boring or
pointless the situation the kids find themselves, in, they handle it
with a measure of respect. In Tagiru's case, there's usually
unbridled enthusiasm as well. This might be the first time the lack
of denigration is really noticeable as we face an episode where a
crisis hits the world of collectible card games.

Just hearing that makes you assume that
this whole episode will be mocking Yu-Gi-Oh. You can already picture
a riff on the visual style of its card battles to the preposterous
contrivances making every duel a life-or-death affair to the dramatic
and sometimes impossible arenas. Instead, Hunters plays it completely
straight. The kids playing the game are totally serious, but
participants in your local game store's Magic: The Gathering nights
often are. They want better cards, they want to improve their rank,
and they're appropriately upset when they unfairly lose either of the
two. Even the visual style of the cards is unrecognizable. These Sea
Monster Cards are bland and don't seem to ape any particular system.
It definitely doesn't try to elevate the prominence of Digimon's card
game. No season, not even Hunters, would be stupid enough to try
pulling that off.

Instead, there's an odd bit of
restraint as the three are quite chill about entering this world. Yuu
likes the strategic element but not how much powerful cards break the
game. Tagiru is discouraged from playing at every turn and doesn't
seem to mind (granted his line about preferring to collect Digimon
instead of cards is horrible and Yuu absolutely should have punched
him in the face). Taiki is barely interested in any of this and
phones his way through the whole episode. Tagiru tries to coax a
“hottokenai” out of him and he just goes “sure, why not?”

That lackadaisical attitude is the only
reason there's any drama to speak of. They monitor a match and
correctly identify a likely target- the nerdiest bow tie-wielding kid
you'll ever see... until tri. comes out. They follow him into
DigiQuartz and watch as KnightChessmon attacks him and steals the
cards. And then... Tagiru sends Gumdramon out for a short curbstomp
of a battle. KnightChessmon pummels him and retreats. Tagiru doesn't
bother evolving him or using a digixros. Taiki and Yuu aren't
concerned enough to bother cutting escape routes. Hiroya gets away
and the hunters just sort of forget about the problem for a couple
days. Yuu merely gives Hiroya a stern talking to. That oughtta do it.
Thanks very much, Yuu.

In that time, of course, KnightChessmon
continues drawing on Hiroya's greed unabated. How much do the hunters
drop the ball? He finishes with Hiroya, evolves to RookChessmon, and
finds a new victim. Then he finishes with that victim and starts on a
third! It's only at this point, with RookChessmon growing to the size
of a building, does Yuu decide that they should probably do something
about this.

After Arresterdramon fails to do
anything against the giant castle, Yuu takes over and engineers a
victory using some of Tagiru and Taiki's secondary Digimon and
Damemon's... unusual move set. Normally we would be applauding such
creativity in ending a fight. It even ties into the narrative as Yuu
maintains that a good strategy can beat the rare cards that all these
players are fighting over. But trying to convince us that the likes
of Blossomon and the Pickmons can actually restrain RookChessmon is a
hard sell. And there's no way sitting back and letting a manageable
KnightChessmon turn into a near-invincible fortress constitutes
intelligent strategy.

My Grade: D+

Loose Data:

Someone explain these terminals to me.
They look advanced and expensive, so are they only configured to run
this niche card game? Are the terminals required to play the game...
which would mean it's not really a card game and instead a video
game? And those face-to-face systems suggests that all the other
machines are for online play. So... they go to a dedicated Sea
Monster Cards parlor in order to play a game that doesn't require
actual human interaction. Sounds pointless.

Did a girl call Hiroya cute once his
rank started to climb? Do card players have groupies now?

As calm as Yuu is throughout this
episode, it makes it that much more hilarious when he absolutely
loses his mind to see all the rare cards in that battle, and even
better with Tagiru trying to match that intensity without actually
knowing what's going on.

On that note, how fair is this game if
cards with a 20,000 attack value are considered rare, but other cards
go up to a million? What's a common worth?

Why does Yuu refuse to tell Taiki that
Hiroya is responsible for the attacks? He owes that kid nothing.

2 comments:

No thoughts on KnightChessmon's part? I thought he was one of the few saving graces of the episode, given how he so coolly manipulates Hiroya for his own gain, and then he points out how much alike they are, all shortly before doing the exact same thing to the kids. Given how petty the kids' issues were, though, his much more traditional power-seeking at least made things respectably dark. Hiroya looked like hell after KnightChessmon finished with him.

It definitely doesn't try to elevate the prominence of Digimon's card game. No season, not even Hunters, would be stupid enough to try pulling that off.

I thought Tamers did a good job of integrating the cards into its setting, considering it was almost certainly a marketing ploy. Not only did it enable the kids to get more directly involved in the battles early on, but it paved the way for the later concepts like Shibumi's blue cards, the Ark (and later Grani), and the explanation for how the DigiGnomes used the digivices to grant the childrens' wishes (because Shibumi designed the digivice as a data interface, which gave them a window to reality).